Welcome to the School of Art

News and Events

Enjoy some new videos by Professor Koichi Yamamoto of activities in the UTK Printmaking Shop.

Clean up after a studio session.

Koichi Yamamoto makes an etching.

The 2012 University of Tennessee High School Arts Academy will be held Saturday, March 24. This is a comprehensive studio workshop of intense practice in a wide variety of media—ceramics, collage, printmaking, graphic design, watercolor, drawing, and photography.

Classes will be limited to 15 students each and will be filled in the order in which forms are received. A non-refundable registration fee of $25 helps cover expenses.

Download the form by clicking here or contact Marcia Goldenstein for more information.

Hannah Short

Hannah Short, razz, mixed media, 38" x 27" x 5", 2011

Graduate student Hannah Short has work included in the exhibition "Beyond the Brickyard" currently on view at the Archie Bray Foundation for Ceramics Arts, Helena, MT. The exhibition, juried by Richard Shaw will be available to view online beginning February 4 at www.archiebray.org.

Ashton Ludden, a graduate student in printmaking, makes artwork that investigates the ethics of eating meat. She is featured in a new video produced by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

A panel session held earlier this year on “The Art of Pranks” chaired by Beauvais Lyons, Chancellor’s Professor in the UT Knoxville School of Art is the focus of an article in the December issue of ARTnews.

In “The Joke’s On Us,” critic Ann Landi discusses the scholarship of pranks in art of the past century, citing artists and art movements including the Dadists, Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol, and others. Lyons’ session at the College Art Association conference held in New York City included presentations by five artists and art historians, and offered a case for Prank Theory as the basis for reconsidering the history of modern and contemporary art.

On First Friday, October 7, Justin Randolph Thompson conducted a performance of The Pits at the UT Downtown Gallery. Bradley Dever Treadaway captured this event for any of those who missed the performance.

On September 16, renowned artist Willie Cole presented a lecture at the School of Art, and it is now available in its entirety online! This six part series was captured by student Jake Wheeler.

Beauvais Lyons was named a Chancellor Professor. Appointment as a Chancellor's Professor is the highest lifetime honor that can be accorded to a member of our faculty. These individuals have many things in common, including enormous scholarly productivity, a proven commitment to their students, and results that change the way we think.

Read about our recently lost friend and professor Michael Brakke on his Memoriam page.

The University of Tennessee is classified as a Doctoral/Research Extensive institution by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Our students are taught by internationally known faculty who conduct a high level of research and creativity activity. Detailed information on our research projects is listed in the research section on this site.

Jered B. Sprecher, assistant professor of art, is the second recipient of the Junior Faculty Research/Creative Achievement Award. A common theme in Professor Sprecher's art is the "handwriting" of humankind, and his paintings and drawings regularly focus on remnant and fragment images from everyday surroundings captured in the midst of change. With works ranging from small, intimate drawings to mid-sized paintings, Professor Sprecher is represented at notable galleries in New York, Boston amd Los Angeles, and he exhibits a strong commitment to participating in the dialogue about contemporary art in those major national venues as well as numerous small town venues. This year, he was awarded a prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship from which he has begun as series of projects on a grand, cinematic scale and now finds himself challenged to investigate the way paint speaks differently in this larger format.
Mr. Sprecher holds a M.F.A. with honors in painting from the University of Iowa and joined the School of Art in 2005.

In 2008, U.S. News and World Report surveyed over 200 graduate fine arts programs in the U.S. and recognized the School of Art’s Printmaking program as 4th in the nation. Our graduate program as a whole was ranked among the top 25% of graduate schools in the country, placing us alongside such programs as Cornell University, Syracuse University, University of Minnesota and the University of New Mexico.